Standard-Examiner staff?jfrancis@standard.net?

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GDEN — “Yodel-ay-ee, ? yodel-ay-hee-hoo.”?

Those were some of the sounds coming from residents of the George E. Wahlen Ogden Veterans Home as they attended a yodeling lesson provided Tuesday night by the local Western performing duo Stampede and a guest performer.?”I’m Terri, the yodeling cowgirl,” sang Stampede’s Terri Taylor as she introduced herself and her husband, Steve.?Soon, Terri had residents and guests from as far away as Park City looking for the breaking point in their voice they could use to make yodeling sounds.?”I’m yodelingly impaired,” Steve said, giving encouragement to those in attendance who may have been having difficulty following Terri’s yodeling instructions.?”Who-dee, who-dee, who-dee,” Steve sang in place of actual yodeling.?Terri said the secret to yodeling is to find your own voice break as you go from a chest singing voice to a head singing voice and then build around that.?”Your epiglottis is going to flip,” she said. “Basically, all yodeling is that simple voice flip.”?Once the flip is mastered, Terri said, yodelers build on a “triad of notes” sung in the yodel to add funny noises and words.?Terri also recommended exercises to potential yodelers before they got started.?”Otherwise, you can injure yourself,” she said.?As a warm-up, participants opened their mouths as wide as they could and made themselves yawn.?Then they purred like cats and rumbled their lips like Harley-Davidson motorcycles.?But Terri acknowledged that much practice — alone in closed rooms or in cars with windows rolled up — was needed before doing a public yodeling performance.?”It’s not easy, but it’s worth it,” Terri said of yodeling. “To me, yodeling is a cheap antidepressant.”?

“It beats Prozac,” Steve said.

?Yodeling students then sang “little-ol’-lady-who” repeatedly as their first official yodels.?Performing with Stampede and giving inspiration to those new to yodeling was Tom Hawk, of Cumberland, Md.?Known as the Yodeling Professor, because he’s a retired professor from Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Md., Hawk has been yodeling for only about 3 1/2 years and been playing guitar only since January.?He took advantage of performing while he was in town visiting with the Taylors and other friends.?”Yodel-ay-oh-tee,” Hawk crooned in a number about waltzing across Texas with his lady in his arms.?A veteran of the Vietnam War, Hawk touted the veterans who live at the home.?”Our veterans should have the respect and honor they deserve.”